Methods and apparatus for improving the matching of relevant advertisements with particular users over the internet

Abstract

A method of matching an advertisement to a user engaging an interface includes identifying a plurality of advertisements; obtaining a source ambient factor, wherein the source ambient factor describes a variable condition of at least one of the user's environment and the user's body; and selecting an advertisement from the plurality of identified advertisements to be displayed to the user via an interface, the selected advertisement having a predetermined relational association with the obtained source ambient factor.

Description

[0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 661,761 filed Mar. 14, 2005, which is incorporated in its entirety herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The present invention relates generally to advertising and, more particularly, to serving computer-selected advertisements over the internet or similar communication networks to computer users with improved targeting accuracy. [0004] 2. Discussion of the Related Art [0005] Advertising using traditional media, such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines, is well known. Advertisers have used these types of media to reach a large audience with their advertisements (“ads”). To reach a more responsive audience, advertisers have used demographic studies. For example, advertisers may use broadcast events such as football games to advertise beer and action movies to a younger male audience. However, even with demographic studies and entirely reasonab...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009] Several embodiments of the invention advantageously address the needs above as well as other needs by prov

Problems solved by technology

However, even with demographic studies and entirely reasonable assumptions about the typical audience of various media outlets, advertisers recognize that much of their ad budget is simply wasted because the target audience is not interested in the ad they are receiving.

While systems such as Adwords have provided advertisers the ability to better target ads, their effectiveness is limited to sites where a user enters a search query to indicate their topic of interest.

Most web pages, however, do not offer search functionality and for these pages it is difficult for advertisers to target their ads.

As a result, often, the ads on non-searched pages are of little value to the viewer of the page and are therefore viewed more as an annoyance than a source of useful information.

Even with the above-described method, there is still a need for increasing the targeting accuracy of advertisements because, while current methods account for the content of a document and / or documents that a user may be accessing, current methods do not account for important factors (i.e., herein referred to as “ambient factors”) within the user's then-current environment that may affect his or her then-current state-of-mind and, therefore, influence his or her receptivity to a particular advertisement.

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